The Apsidal Building of the Vicus Martis Tudertium (PG)

Over the course of the past three seasons (2012-2014) at the putative site of the Vicus Martis Tudertium near the church of S. Maria in Pantano (Massa Martana, PG), excavation has focused on a large structure first observed in crop marks in fall 2008. We have uncovered a large building oriented along the putative Via Flaminia and possessing an apse at its eastern end, the precise function of which remains unclear. Excavation has also uncovered a series of early-medieval burials located just east of the structure.

La lunga diacronia di un sito archeologico toscano: il complesso di Pava (Siena) dal II al XIII sec. d.C.

The paper is centred on southern Tuscany on the archaeological complex of Pieve di Pava where archaeological research have been conducted since the 2000 by the University of Siena. The parish church is first mentioned as the baptisterium Sancti Petri in Pava in a document of AD 715 part of a long dispute between the bishop of Siena and the bishop of Arezzo. But the archaeological excavation revealed a longer history of the site that start from the Roman period with a villa dated between the second to the fourth century BC. The villa continued to grow in Late Antiquity since it was transformed by a church. The paper is centred on these fluctuations of the site and on the implications of the transformations on the landscape. One of the stronger element of the Pava site, in addition to the very particular plan of the early church (built with two opposing apses) was the huge cemetery around the church that was used from the seventh century BC until the Middle Ages. The 900 excavated graves make this one of the largest and most long-lasting late-Roman to medieval cemeteries excavated in Europe.